As it turns out, Erik Ainge’s pinkie finger is broken. Hopefully he’ll still be able to go, although doctors are saying that it will take 3-4 weeks to heal completely. That puts the Florida game smack dab in the middle of his recovery schedule.

If nothing else, he should be able to sit out (if he has to) against Southern Miss, although that’s a pretty scary prospect too, and let Crompton have the start. If Crompton has to come in this week against Cal, I believe that he can do a fine job, as he got some valuable playing time and experience last year when Ainge was out with a bum ankle.

Obviously the best case scenario would be for Ainge to start, play, and not feel any pain, but that likely won’t happen. Does anyone have any Valium they can lend for the deal? *cough* Lamarcus? *cough* Anyone?

So, some of our opponent previews and such might be incendiary, but it’s all in good fun.  Most of the Cal bloggers who have picked up on our blog seem to have a sense of humor about it, and we would like to respond by posting some opponent blog linkeys.

So, here’s some Cal Blog linkage:

The California Golden Blogs

The Band Is Out On The Field

Contra Costa Times Cal Blog 

Rose Bowl Before I Die

Three. More. Days.

To tide you over until then, I’ve done some extensive half-assed research on Cal in order to inform those of you lucky enough to be attending the game (2 of the 3 writers here, one of which is not me) and to enlighten those of you that really know nothing of our esteemed pitiful opponent.

A few years ago, a man named Doug Dickey signed a contract with a premier, up and coming team from California called USC. When USC realized they could appear to be a much stronger team by playing much weaker foes, they canceled the contract and instead referred us to UC-Berkeley. Also, I probably just made all that up.

Haha, his last name is ‘Dickey’

Just where is the University of California? UC is actually UC-Berkeley, the Berkeley being omitted to divert attention from the nerdiness associated with the university in an attempt to associate themselves with the whole posh California lifestyle. Berkeley is located near San Francisco, which as you all know is the world’s capital for homosexuality. Does this imply that everyone at Berkeley is gay? Of course it does.

In all actuality, UC has such notable alumni as George Takei (gay Star Trek guy), John Cho (the Korean milf guy and co-star of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (he wasn’t Kumar)). Much more impressively, they boast one of the top graduate schools in the country and they’re home to 23 Nobel Laureates you’ve probably never heard of.

Alan Heeger, porn star Nobel Laureate for chemistry

The football program was established in 1886 and has won two national championships, the last being 70 years ago in 1937. Jeff Tedford is the current coach of the Golden Bears and has been rather succesful, including a 2004 campaign which handed defeat to eventual national champions USC and had a 10-1 record. For a more complete history, visit the Wikipedia page on the Golden Bears athletics department.

This year’s game is being billed as a revenge game from last year’s walloping, a 35-18 embarrassment for the Golden Bears. They entered the game as favorites and as national title contenders. They left disappointed, realizing that the teams in the PAC-10 really aren’t so elite and that an SEC team coming off a mediocre year is miles ahead of a PAC-10 team with loads of promise.

Now, from the eyes of your typical UC fan, Tennessee is full of imbred, pig raising, meth using, sister having sex with, tobacco chewing retards (see the ESPN commercial a few years back). But that’s alright, at least we’re not gay.

(Disclaimer: gay references used just for comedic purposes and are not meant to make fun of homosexuals which are not Cal fans. In fact, we love homosexuals that are UT fans! Wait…what?)

Erik Ainge jammed his pinky finger during practice, and will be rested for the next few days in order to heal the finger in time for Saturday’s game against the Cal Bears.  Hopefully he’ll be fine for the opener, although Coach Fulmer was quick to point out that if he couldn’t go, that Crompton would be ready to play.

Now, I’ve jammed a finger before playing basketball (some might not call it “playing” so much as “taking up space”), and jamming the fingers hurts like a mofo.  Also, this being his throwing hand, it’s probably hindering his throwing quite a bit.

Now, I’ve always been one to hope the season gets here as fast as possible, but in this case, I’m glad that it’s still only Tuesday (as of this writing), and since Fulmer made the remarks today, it means that Ainge will have a full 4 days or so to heal it up.  Get that bad boy on some ice!

Ok, so check out this post from back in the day about the departure of Mike Tirico from the ranks of College Football broadcasting. I even made the linky really long so you can click it. Then, come back here.

I don’t know if you guys checked out the Michael Vick Roundtable Discussion Monday Night Football game, but allow me to offer my observations about the game regardless.

Firstly, let me say that there were several issues with the show. My first problem was that there was some woman from the AJC I believe, being interviewed on the sideline. She was the most droning, terrible speaker in the history of speech, during which, she reiterated many, many, many times that she was NOT a football, Falcons NOR a Vick fan to begin with. Well ESPN, way to go finding someone like that to interview for the better part of eternity in the first place to drone on and on about Vick’s image as a football player. This by itself made me switch back to the wrestling show.

The second problem gets back to the heart of the issue, the ever-crappy Mike Tirico. Sure, his voice still drones on like the robot he is, but that actually wasn’t my issue with him this time. They had a lawyer in the booth to whom they were asking questions regarding the legal teams’ thoughts and processes. So far, so good, but Tirico, in his undying need to be getting at least 50% of the “speech time” would take it upon himself to cut in and talk about a play in the third quarter of a preseason game featuring players that will likely be washing my car come September.

He did it on several occasions, completely oblivious to the fact that there were people standing right next to him carrying on a conversation. Nice. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Tirico felt slighted by Tony Kornheiser and Joe Theismann Ron “Jaws” Jaworski (thanks Boonie!) who seemed to be creating their own little “booth clique.” Whatever the case, it still came across as being crass and rude to just keep doing his own personal commentary of the game while there were some good discussions going on. No doubt, there will be more to come, and well, I weep for Monday Night Football.

It’s freaking GAME WEEK! The day we’ve all been waiting for for an excruciating six months. It’s still going to be an excruciating 6 days, but if there’s one consolation, there’s at least some real games being played on Thursday.

This week might or might not contain a lot of posts because of my excitement, which will either manifest itself in a writing fit, or in tremors, in which case, it might be difficult for me to type correctly resulting in sentences that look more like: huhufijkadnvi iwekdnv niwend aisngl ya know?!!??!?! OMGHi2U!Kitties!!one!!

But we’ll see. We’ll have an opponent preview coming up sometime mid week or so, and we’ll have some good ole word spanking coming up for the Golden Bears on tap as well.

Enjoy the week, and try to actually get some work done, even though that would be impossible.

WOOOO!

edit: Thanks to our friends at A Sea of Blue for the linky, and not only that for the AWESOME nickname for the Cal Football team… the “Yogis!”  I guess that would make the fans… the “Boo Boos.”  Sweetness.

LaMarcus Coker is set to return to the team after taking care of some of his personal off-field business, reported Coach Fulmer.

The thing being, that he will not make the trip to Berkeley next week.  If Fulmer wants to be a successful coach in this league, he’s going to have to take his cues from the likes of Urban Meyer, and only suspend players for craptacular games that don’t mean anything.  Game against a top 25 team this week?  The player is still “under investigation” but cleared to play.  Game against a cupcake?  Definite suspension.  When will the coach ever learn?